SOURCE: Tănăsescu, Grigore. “Ovid and Mihai Eminescu—Two Points of Confluence of Two Poetics.” Romanian Review 26, no. 2 (1972): 50-4.

In the following essay, Tănăsescu establishes Ovid as a source of erotic themes in Eminescu's poetry.

Mihai Eminescu's first acquaintance with Ovid might have been occasioned by G. Reinbeck's book Mythologie für Nichtstudierende, which he thoroughly studied in his school days at Cernăuţi. Such mythological names as Atlas, Hercules, Nessus, Venus and Adonis, Diana, Aurora, Narcissus, Echo, Phaëthon, a.s.o. found in Ovid's work and quite frequently referred to by the author of the above-mentioned mythology penetrated into Eminescu's symbolism as early as his first poems. Later on, the mythological temptation was to develop, reaching fabulous proportions in the representations of the Romanian poet. For Eminescu, Ovid meant not only the creator of The Metamorphoses, of mythological fabulation, but also the...